


Lab partners

by Bitterblue



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-16 04:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2256087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue/pseuds/Bitterblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharkodactyl asked for a high school au progeek with Sarah as Cosima's bff who hates Rachel. This is the thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [piggy09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/gifts).



Cosima's heart sinks when she goes over the seating chart for chemistry and finds herself paired with Rachel Duncan. This is not an auspicious start to the school year.

Rachel Duncan wears crisp button-up shirts (fully buttoned) and skirts every day. They do not have uniforms. Rachel Duncan has utterly perfected the art of staring with her prosthetic eye, which first of all is not possible, and second of all is  _super_  creepy. Rachel Duncan is the top ranked in their class through a combination of effort and, the rumours go, bribery. Rachel Duncan has boys falling at their feet for her. (Sometimes literally.) Rachel Duncan speaks with an affected English accent despite apparently having been born and raised in the bay like the rest of the class, but no one has questioned it in years.

Rachel Duncan is the last person Cosima wanted to have for a lab partner.

She is already settled into the desk, spreading spiral notebooks and a collection of pens and highlighters across her half of the table, when Rachel arrives, glances at the seating chart, and sneers. She turns, looking at Cosima, eyebrows very slightly raised. Cosima thinks she's read somewhere that cats will stare in an attempt at dominance and that if you look away first you've lost. Rachel's good eye is brown, she realizes with surprise--she had always been distracted by the white, featureless prosthetic from an accident no one has ever had the guts to ask Rachel about.

"Hey! Cos! What--" Cosima blinks, and turns her head to find Sarah waving from the table behind hers, and knows she has lost whatever it was she was doing with Rachel. She's probably going to regret that. Sarah's grin fades a little at whatever expression is on her face. "What was  _that_  about?"

"I've got Rachel for my partner." Sarah's face darkens into a scowl.

Light fingertips drop onto her shoulder, settling into pressure points with faint touch. Cosima doesn't have to move to know it's Rachel. "I see we are to be partners for the year, Cosima. I hear you're  _very_  clever." They've been in school together since kindergarten. It's a ridiculous thing to say.

Cosima twists, turning to face her, and raises her eyebrows. "Yeah, I was clever when I was six." Rachel nearly smiles, and she can hear every objection Sarah is going to make already, but Cosima is in a  _lot_  of trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

It actually isn't quite as bad as she'd expected, which is still not great but is better than Cosima thinks she really has any reason to believe will continue indefinitely. After a rocky few first classes of icy silence rarely interrupted by sharp, muttered invectives against her person, they've settled into something that (while uncomfortable) is functional: Cosima does the work. Rachel ignores her.

She's used to doing the work in her school-assigned pairings (though, honestly, pairing up with Sarah half the time leads to her doing all the work, too), so it isn't that she  _minds_  so much as she's irritated at how much Rachel seems to not care. Other students would at least have the decency to be apologetic or outright cruel. Rachel just reads on her tablet, wedged between her lap and the desk, and  _ignores_. Cosima, for the life of her, cannot ignore Rachel, and it grates on her every nerve.

She is just measuring reagent and considering the consequences if she were to spill it on the tablet screen beside her when Cosima's attention is drawn to the door and a tall, beautiful blonde girl. For a moment, her heart stutters.

She clearly has a thing for blondes.

The girl speaks to the teacher briefly, who glances at the seating chart and then walks with her toward the middle of the room. They stop at Cosima and Rachel's table. Rachel does not bother to glance up; Cosima smiles.

"Cosima, this is Delphine Cormier, our slightly delayed exchange student. Would it be alright to squeeze her into your table, too?" It isn't quite a question, not from a teacher, but she doesn't mind it. Cosima shrugs, and offers her hand to the exchange student, who blushes prettily.

"Enchantée, Cosima," she says, and  _fuck_  she's French.

"Enchantée—oh, um, there's a spare chair just over—yeah, great, so welcome to the table." She slides her chair closer to Rachel, making room for Delphine to sit. Beside her, Rachel snorts a suppressed laugh.

"Enchantée," she mutters, tone mocking, "you look like a puppy."

Cosima ignores her, and helps Delphine find goggles.

 

The unlikely addition of a third to their now slightly-crowded table turns out to be a godsend: Delphine is fantastic at science and enthusiastic enough to make up for Rachel's complete disinterest (and occasional, muttered mockery, always pitched just loudly enough that Cosima can hear her but not so loud that Delphine notices, or seems to notice, anyway). It's still obnoxious that Rachel is getting credit for work she hasn't even made the vaguest attempt at completing, but with Delphine there to talk to, Cosima finds she no longer minds so much.

They start to spend time together outside of class, too, Cosima and Delphine—never Rachel, who would not be seen dead with anyone their own age. Sometimes she thinks about inviting Rachel along just for the reaction she might get. Then again, she values her life.

Delphine is sick one day in the middle of November, and the table feels empty and quiet without her. Rachel says nothing, but Cosima can feel her watching her and the empty third chair.

"If she isn't coming in, you needn't sit so  _close_."

Cosima couldn't say what she had been expecting, but that is not it. She shakes her head with an incredulous little huff of a laugh and looks at Rachel, squarely meeting her good eye.

"This is where my chair goes."

"Well, you could  _move it_  because without your darling puppy to gaze wistfully at, you and I do not have to be nearly so familiar."

A handful of answers roll through her mind, ranging from indignant ("I do not gaze  _wistfully_!") to angry ("Why does it  _matter_?"), but what comes out of her mouth is this: "It isn't  _Delphine_  I'm interested in, Duncan, so just shut up."

There is a pause, heavy with all the potential replies she could make, and then Rachel glances back down at the ever-present tablet and flicks open her e-reader app without comment. Cosima uneasily resumes her schoolwork, but she no longer has the sense that Rachel is  _ignoring_  and it sets her nerves alight with something neither excitement nor fear but a little of both.


End file.
